An Afghan peace negotiations team has arrived in Abu Dhabi, an official said yesterday, a day after talks attended by US and Taliban representatives were held in the city aimed at ending the 17-year conflict. International players and Kabul are trying to bring the Taliban to the table as military measures have been largely futile.

China has the most number of high ranked universities followed by Japan and South Korea in Asia. However, the Asian countries with no high ranked universities are Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Brunei, Philippines, Indonesia and Mongolia.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling party officials were gathering yesterday for talks on a general election due by May, with their deliberations overshadowed by the party's defeat at the polls in three heartland rural states.

After suffering an electoral thrashing at the hands of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist party in 2014, India's small regional and caste-based parties are back in the reckoning months ahead of the next general election.

The defeat of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in assembly elections in the three Indian heartland states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan was the most severe since the party assumed power on the back of a landslide victory in parliamentary polls in May, 2014.

Sri Lanka's ousted prime minister yesterday promised to bring tens of thousands of supporters to the capital next week for a massive demonstration unless President Maithripala Sirisena reinstated him imminently.

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena said that the current political crisis in the country will not drag on beyond a week even as a war of words between him and ousted prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe intensified.

Pakistan's army yesterday threw its support behind the latest US efforts for a political settlement with the Afghan Taliban to end a 17-year-old war, urging Washington to leave Kabul as a friend of the region rather than a "failure".

Murtaza Ahmadi moved the world with his love for footballer Lionel Messi in 2016. His dream of meeting the Argentinian came true, but now the seven-year-old boy is living a nightmare as one of thousands of Afghans displaced by war.

While the audience shared the intensity with which many of his contemporaries and admirers expressed their admiration for the music legend Salil Chowdhury on his 93rd birth anniversary, there was a depressing footnote when his daughter, Antara, confessed that it had become quite difficult to arrange a celebration even on a small scale.

Myanmar's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is facing international criticism over her country's crackdown on Rohingya Muslims, yesterday called for "a culture of peace" to end conflict between communities.

Sri Lanka's parliament yesterday voted to halt payment of ministers' salaries and travel expenses, but it remained unclear how the move would impact the disputed government of Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa whose ministers boycotted the vote.

A United Nations investigation has found that at least 23 Afghan civilians, most of them women and children, were killed in a US airstrike in the southern province of Helmand this week, the latest in a growing toll of casualties from air operations.

Making peace overtures, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan yesterday said he was ready to hold talks with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi as he conceded that it was not in Islamabad's interest to allow use of its territory for terror activities outside the country.

Sri Lanka's parliament cut the budget of the Prime Minister's office yesterday, a move designed to hinder disputed premier Mahinda Rajapaksa whose supporters boycotted the vote in the latest twist in a weeks-long political standoff.

As Myanmar State Counsellor and Minister for Foreign Affairs Aung San Suu Kyi commences her two-day Nepal visit, the Nepalese government should draw her attention to ensure safe return of the Rohingya Muslim minorities and have a fair investigation into the alleged abuses, said human rights agencies.